Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Lion Nathan Ltd., the Australian brewer bought by Kirin Holdings Co., expects to continue to grow profit as increased promotion drives demand for beers such as Tooheys and Hahn.

“We’ve run along broadly at double-digit profit growth for 10 years,” Chief Executive Officer Rob Murray said in an interview yesterday. “We certainly aspire to keep going at the kind of historical growth rates we’ve been growing at.”

Tokyo-based Kirin, which completed the takeover last month, is merging its existing Australian juice and milk units with the nation’s second-largest brewer, with Murray to run the combined operations. The beermaker yesterday reported a 13 percent gain in annual profit, its fastest growth since 2005, after Murray completed a three-year program of upgrading breweries and spending more promoting brands.

“These investments were long-term and you would expect the returns to be greater than one year,” Murray, 46, said by telephone. He declined to provide a specific profit forecast.

Kirin paid A$3.5 billion ($3.2 billion) to purchase the 54 percent of Lion Nathan that it didn’t already own.

The combined business will be known as Lion Nathan National Foods Pty., and will maintain separate sales and distribution systems for beer.

Lion Nathan’s earnings before items rose 13 percent to A$313.1 million in the 12 months ended Sept. 30 on demand for new products such as Five Seeds cider and low-carbohydrate beers such as Hahn Super Dry.

Murray expects to add more new products under his main labels, with 95 percent of product innovation coming under five brands.

“If it makes sense to extend brands, and it does in beer, it will continue,” Murray said. “It happens under the broad churches of Tooheys, XXXX, Hahn, Boag’s and James Squire and all of those trademarks are in growth.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Fenner in Melbourne rfenner@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 5, 2009 20:09 EST